In Another Life
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: AU. Just before Boston Homicide storms Dennis's apartment, he manages to slit Maura's throat. Maura wakes up in the same state in the middle of a vast meadow, and her eyes seem to be playing tricks on her. Jane was there. But Jane was dead. So...was she...?


**In Another Life**

A **Rizzoli & Isles** fic by Gigi

**A/N: Hi, this was just a oneshot based on a little challenge from tumblr (btdubs, follow me if you have one). The challenge was to imagine your OTP in the afterlife, and I had this really sad scene in my head to start it off. So here's the oneshot, and I hope you enjoy it!**

The flash of the coroner's camera and the click of the shutter jolted the two detectives out of their stupor. Suddenly, what had seemed to be as still as a photograph now bustled with CSU and uniforms canvassing the building. Frost, who'd finally started to master his queasiness, found his way to the sink and emptied his stomach. Korsak didn't even look up at the sound of his partner's retching. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the victim's body.

Normally perfect blonde curls were matted down with blood, stemming from a messy slice across her throat. Her limbs were splayed out unnaturally, as if she'd been dropped from the top of the stairs. The blood spatter down the steps seemed to say the same thing. Her black blazer lay open, showing a dress that now matched the color of the stains on her neck. On the hem of the blazer was the ID that was required to process the scene—but that no one needed to identify the victim.

Korsak swallowed thickly as tears came to his eyes. He could already see the headline on the papers tomorrow: Chief Medical Examiner Brutally Murdered.

He heard Frost come back up next to him wiping his mouth. "God," the younger detective exhaled, horrified.

"Jane never would have let this happen," Korsak choked out. "She would have figured it out before that damn sculptor got her alone."

—

Maura opened her eyes with a gasp—and promptly shut them again at the blinding light that greeted her. She tried again, this time only opening her eyes a little bit at a time and blinking repeatedly. All she saw was blue sky. Not a cloud was in sight. Where was she?

She couldn't really remember going to sleep, let alone where she'd been. Sitting up, she looked down at herself. An oddly patterned dress covered her. It was a light pink, but it was as if someone poured crimson paint over it from the neck down so that there were dribbling streaks of red that almost reached the hem, whereas the neckline was almost completely—

It looked like so many reddish-brown stains she'd seen in her years as a medical examiner. Eerily like those stains. A hand went up to her hair to find it stiff and matted down. She let her hand travel down over her face, below her chin, just hitting her neck when a surprising amount of caked blood met her fingers. Feeling slowly, she trailed her fingers across the deep gash spanning her throat. But she felt no pain.

Was she…?

"Am I dead?" she whispered in astonishment. She finally started to take in her surroundings. She was in a giant meadow, and no one was around her. Except for a figure in the distance. She blinked. The figure was a little closer, just close enough to distinguish a dark head of hair. She blinked again. And gasped. "Jane? Is that really you?"

Wild raven curls framed a face she'd never thought she'd see again. She looked almost exceedingly normal in such a strange setting. Her clothes were the same as she'd ever worn outside of work: a comfortable baseball t-shirt and form-fitting jeans. She looked as beautifully casual as she ever had. Like nothing had happened to her. Except for the puckered scar across her neck. Liquid brown eyes swimming with sorrow and outrage took in every detail of the medical examiner's being. "Maura, who did this to you?" Barely contained rage strained Jane Rizzoli's husky voice.

Maura didn't answer, only threw herself onto the homicide detective in a bone-crushing hug. The sudden movement caught Jane off guard, sending her onto her back with Maura clinging to her neck. "Jane," she whimpered into her shoulder. "I…I never thought I'd get to see you again."

Those words were enough to make her hug the blonde back as fiercely as possible. "I've missed you so much," Jane breathed. She pulled back enough to look at Maura's face in concern. "I was expecting to have to wait for at least a couple of decades to see you again, though, not six months." She tried to clear away some of the matted hair from Maura's forehead. "Who did this to you?"

Maura sighed and sat up, scooting down Jane's legs so that she could sit up as well. "I started seeing this motivational speaker a couple months after you…" Light eyes flitted down to Jane's neck, registering the scar of the precise, neat slice of a scalpel spanning her throat. Hoyt's work. His last hurrah as he laid in a hospital bed dying from pancreatic cancer. Tears filled Maura's eyes, and she had to take a deep breath to continue. "Anyway, I really liked him because he was crazy and impulsive, and he made me feel this kind of rush. He even got me to graffiti a wall."

"Maura, you _tagged?_ You work for the Boston Police Department!" Jane scolded.

A sheepish grin made its way onto the doctor's face. "Yeah, that's what Frankie said when he wrote me up." A dark shadow cast lingered in her eyes as she finished up her story. "Anyway, he left for a while, and then when he came back, we were in the middle of a serial killer investigation, where all the bodies were encased in plaster and made to look like statues. I didn't realize that I was dating the killer until Korsak and Frost were banging on the door and Dennis had a knife to my throat." She didn't even realize she was shaking until she felt Jane's hands rubbing soothingly up and down her arms. "I guess he got to me before Korsak and Frost did."

Jane was shaking, too, she realized, when two tan fingers went up to the gash on her neck once more. "I hate to know that you died like I did," Jane murmured, her eyes shining with regret. "I thought that…I thought that by taking Hoyt with me, I'd have kept you safe."

Maura sent her a sad smile before leaning in and pulling a long, forgiving kiss from the other woman. "You kept me safe, but when Hoyt…Korsak and Frost are partners now, and they do their best to look out for me. But they could never replace you, nor did they ever want to."

A small smirk came to Jane's lips. "They might have wanted to if they'd known the exact nature of our relationship." Maura couldn't help but chuckle in agreement. Resting her forehead against the still bloodstained forehead of the other woman, she breathed in a scent she hadn't been able to fully remember in the six months since she'd had her own neck sliced open. A scent that, below the coppery smell of dried blood, was flowery and light, just like Maura. "God, I've missed you."

Maura kissed her again. And again. And again. "I can't believe you're here. Or, that I'm here. Or…I don't know. What is this place?"

Jane shrugged. "I don't know how to explain it," she admitted. "It's not like heaven or hell or anything like that. It's not like you're punished for your sins, but the…darker people don't come here. They go to a different…dimension, I guess I would call it. Our dimension is…do you remember how, in fairy tales, the forests and lakes are just completely spectacular? It's like that here, and when you come into this dimension, it's almost like it feels your presence and makes you a home that's so integrated with the nature it looks like it belongs there."

Cocking her head to the side, Maura made a face. "It sounds like it would be boring for you."

A giant sigh left Jane's lips. "You have no idea how boring," she agreed. A twinkle lit up in her eyes. "Although, I can't say it'll be as boring now that you're here."

"Well, we have the rest of our eternal afterlives to figure out how to entertain ourselves," Maura teased against the detective's lips. "I'm sure we can make it work."

After six months of no satisfaction, Jane indulged in her kisses. As much as she hated what happened to Maura more than she hated what happened to herself, she couldn't help but be elated at the fact that she no longer had to be alone. With a final kiss, she nudged the doctor off her lap. "Come on," she insisted, standing up and holding out a hand for Maura. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Maura took the proffered hand and intertwined her fingers with Jane's after she stood. "And then we get to fixing your boredom problem."

A delighted laugh slipped from Jane's lips. "Deal."

**The End.**

**A/N: Please review!**


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